


anchor (no plural here)

by falsemurmur



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-18
Updated: 2009-12-18
Packaged: 2017-10-04 12:34:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/falsemurmur/pseuds/falsemurmur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>There was a list, a pretty long one at that. Properties, possessions, and what have you, for the sake of freedom from the spousal life. As if those worldly things matched the lives they had before they were </em>Derek and Addison<em><i>.</i></em></p>
            </blockquote>





	anchor (no plural here)

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by a prompt through a meme that had been floating around, from [](http://corleones.livejournal.com/profile)[**corleones**](http://corleones.livejournal.com/): _addison/derek. things i have loved, i am allowed to keep._ my first addison/derek fic (which i thought would never happen). enjoy.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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**Entry tags:**|   
[pairing: addison/derek](http://community.livejournal.com/wings_for_craft/tag/pairing:+addison/derek), [tv: grey's anatomy](http://community.livejournal.com/wings_for_craft/tag/tv:+grey%27s+anatomy), [type: oneshot](http://community.livejournal.com/wings_for_craft/tag/type:+oneshot)  
  
  
_**anchor**_  
**title: **anchor (no plural here)  
**fandom: **Grey's Anatomy  
**summary: **_There was a list, a pretty long one at that. Properties, possessions, and what have you, for the sake of freedom from the spousal life. As if those worldly things matched the lives they had before they were _Derek and Addison__.__  
**characters/pairings:** Addison/Derek  
**genre(s):** Angst/Romance  
**rating: **PG-13  
**note: **inspired by a prompt through a meme that had been floating around, from [](http://corleones.livejournal.com/profile)[**corleones**](http://corleones.livejournal.com/): _addison/derek. things i have loved, i am allowed to keep._ my first addison/derek fic (which i thought would never happen). enjoy.

~*~  
Things got difficult and nothing was the same anymore, but in the end, her feet trudged back to that little semblance of home where maybe, just perhaps, Derek would be that night or morning.

When Derek, by some incredible miracle, was there, she’d hand him a glass of wine, slip him a smile, and brush her hand through his hair, even if she knew that he would most probably say “I have work early” or “I’m tired” or something equally stupid. Love doesn’t tire (this, for a long time, was a fact, true and simple). But as her life with him eventually did, the fact she tried so hard to deny of love straining, settled.

*

 

There was a list, a pretty long one at that. Properties, possessions, and what have you, for the sake of freedom from the spousal life. As if those worldly things matched the lives they had before they were _Derek and Addison_, as if reminders of a life so supposedly unified would do them well after everything, as if anything was really needed in the afterlife, when the wake was over and the dirt was patched back to only just resemble normalcy.

And he said “let her have it, all of it”, and it was insult. None of the things that had been _theirs_ would do her much good, even stripped of sentimental values (really what’s a brownstone worth when all you’ve got is yourself and an empty space?). But it wasn’t about her not wanting any of it, it was about him wanting none of it. Like it had all turned to hazardous material. The memories and yesterdays, all that crap she would gladly wrap up in a quilt, fold nicely, and tuck into a corner of her life, he was willing to completely throw aside. What was that? What had she ever meant to him? Nothing or much too much?

 

-¤-

 

She laced one foot over the other, shifted some on the couch, and casually swept her feet over his lap. He harrumphed, acting as though the weight of her ankles and soles and toes really did amount to much, and she dug her heel into his thigh for that. He laughed as he attempted to cover the sincere sting he felt at that.

Addison clicked her tongue and shook her head at him. She stuck her fork into her vegetable chow mien and let out a sigh when the warm noodles traveled through her throat.

She didn’t know why then, but she actively kept this memory secured by her side. Derek didn’t take his eyes off her. Not when she took what could have been hours to adjust herself on the cramped and old couch, not when she rested her feet on his lap when he too was trying to eat, not when she just slightly hit him, and not as she swallowed those first forkful of noodles. She kept the long moment, because eventually she’d realize it wasn’t normal, and that was astounding--to have something abnormal and beautiful directed at her in the form of a guy who could be hanging out with his mischievous but fun best friend and whatnot. It was when things would go by the wayside of normal ‘hey, I can’t observe the shape of your eyes on a daily basis’ and work stopped including so much studying and a lot more doing, and the food grew from ‘it’s cold but it’ll do’ to ‘it’s cold and stale, it doesn’t work’, behavior that things became involuntarily memorable.

 

-¤-

 

Unfortunately for her, he drops by on a Tuesday, and Tuesdays have the tendency to be busy. This one’s busy and terrible.

A mother dies during childbirth and the baby’s barely hanging on, and as she’s informing the woman’s husband that he’s a widow, Derek walks in. She sighs despite herself and the widow just stares at her, eyes brimming with hope, expecting to hear “congratulations, you’re the father of a healthy baby girl. We only just hide a little scare, which is why you couldn’t come in, but your wife is resting up now, but you can go see them now”. But Addison drags her eyes back down to the painfully young man, and tells him, “we tried our best, but there was a complication and…” the rest falls on deaf ears, the worst coming with that but, and all he wants to see is his daughter. And it’s understandable and too much for any person, young or old, strong or weak, to handle.

She wants to walk straight to her office now, rest her head in her hands, or better yet delve into paperwork and then check back up on that little baby girl. But Derek’s already making his way over to her, so she trudges forward to him, smiles tightly and then opens her mouth to say “Derek. Now this is a surprise” but a breath barely escapes her mouth when he pulls her into a hug, and it’s instinct for her body to lean back in.

“You have a moment to talk?” he asks beside her ear, and she replies, “of course”.

(Saying no to Derek has always been off-putting, so more often than not, she simply complies with him.)

They walk to her office, small talk making its way between them.

“So how are you?” he asks, and she says, “good. I lost a would-be mother, however. But at least the baby has a possibility of making it.”

“She’ll make it,” he nudges, and she quirks her eye and for a second he flashes a smile, “I know better than to think you’d doubt it.”

She smiles along to not let on that she wasn’t being humble--she’s lost her edge, she feels, and she’s not very certain about things these days, not even about medical things.

She opens her door and he walks in, takes in the room, and goes to sit in front of her desk. Addison closes the door and sits behind her desk.

“You alright, Derek?”

She’s known him a long time, and as with anyone she knows for a good while, she prefers jumping right in.

He begins with Meredith, but things with him usually do, so she pacifies her scoff and listens, and before long they’re just two friends talking about a hospital that’s lost its way and the doctors who’ve passed on, literally and figuratively. And Addison feels shock, because she’s heard about the recent occurrences, but hearing them directly from Derek, and hearing the personal side of things (Alex Karev is a mess but no one’s ever see him more put together, and Izzie is being such a survivor over everything, but George has her more messed up than anything, and Bailey’s running around, still trying to be the thread everything hangs on, etc., etc., etc.). And then Derek talks about Mark and his relationship with a Grey (Addison laughs, but her smile says more about the situation than anything--Mark’s found a reality he doesn’t want to escape), and for a second he mentions a post-it wedding and silence breaks through.

“You know, in another lifetime…” he leans back in his chair, speaks with a near mournful tone, as though such wistfulness will make everything better and Addison will forget that Derek chose a post-it wedding over a decade of legal marriage.

“In another lifetime, you would have forgiven me but not Mark, who is practically your brother. In another lifetime, I would have listened to reason. In another lifetime there wouldn’t have been a Mark to come in between, or maybe a Meredith, or a me. In every lifetime, something would have come between,” Addison says so logistically that Derek can only nod in agreement and smile softly.

Still, it’s quiet for a moment after that. Then he says, “I’m sorry.”

Addison blinks and breathes in, “me too.”

(And they don’t fully discuss it, but the reason Derek treks over to sunny California is to purely talk to Addison about things. It’s another given of their lives.)

 

-¤-

 

On the outset, there was no grand memorable story. Despite that, he and she were a given, which was the amazing thing. Derek and Addison made sense. She wore heels and studied medicine better than the best of them. He drew the eye without trying and was focused on making a good career. Put together, their smiles and glances struck envy in most everyone, to be quite frank.

One day, and over many days and weeks, they decided it was absolutely imperative they get married, and somehow Derek got on that knee of his and proposed properly. There just would not have been any other way for Addison Forbes Montgomery to agree to be his wife.

*

 

Derek didn’t do jealous. And Addison wasn’t overly concerned with gossip, especially if it was unfounded gossip.

So she danced with Mark at parties when Derek would rather sit at a table, conversing with someone about a case.

Mark noticed her halter dresses and tanned legs, and he made it apparent that he realized he was with _the_ Addison Forbes Montgomery when he threaded his fingers alongside her hips and he nearly grazed his lips near her neck. She’d laugh at him and tell him to watch himself, but she wouldn’t stop. Mark was fun, and he had dates with him, and even if he didn’t, he could have his pick of girls wherever they went, and yet he always asked her to accompany him for a dance.

Their friends found it unnerving that Derek was so complacent in his charming and attractive best friend took to Addison so much, but Addison and Derek rolled their eyes and shrugged it off, even if Mark did not.

It was much more difficult to shrug off when the thunder roared and Derek was throwing things carelessly into a suitcase, Addison running behind him, eyes marked black from non tear-proof mascara. She pounded against the infidelity she dared commit against him, but his eyes were dead, and no amount of screaming could bring him back.

Everything was in ruins, everything, everything, everything. He had every right to throw her out. He had every right to hate her for a night, not care if she froze in that t-shirt, on the steps of what no longer was a home. Yet he let her remain housed in, and he walked right out on them. (He had every right to walk out. But only for a night. He had to come back, he had to. Because if he subtracted all the bad times from all their good times, it had to result to a positive. No way could it equal a negative.)

Instead months passed, and then, after a year of experiments and equations, they signed away their marriage, making due with an apparent negative.

 

-¤-

 

When she forgave herself (and it was, all joking aside, a long and tedious road, one that sometimes she still lapses onto, as she is human), she cracked her fingers, slipped off her glasses, and rested her head on his chest without feeling like she hadn’t the right to do so. She felt his chest restrain, but after a couple of minutes, he loosened and breathed in, breathed out, just right. She smiled, turned on her side, placed a hand above his belly. It was quiet and it was ten o’ clock with thirty-nine minutes, but she wasn’t sleepy. She simply closed her eyes and rested in a moment somewhere near heaven, but at the end only higher than purgatory (which was more than she’d gotten with him in a long, long time, so she wouldn’t complain).

To say the trailer situation was terrible was an understatement. That shower hardly qualified as one, and the toilet was worse. Smells got trapped in there within seconds. There was no way to make a both accommodating and presentable bed, so it had to be one or the other. The closet was much too narrow for her to place her designer clothing in. That was just a handful of the stuff she absolutely hated about the place.

Addison managed, against that mess of a home and their lives, to dig in her heels and find her comfort for a second out of a year muddled with memories and reminders of all that had gone (within and outside the context of _she and he_) horribly wrong and right.


End file.
